To commemorate the release of Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits, I've decided to write ScoreHero's first GHOT guide EVER, according to the Definitive List of Guides. Though it's not the hardest game in the series by a long shot, there are some elements in the game that can throw even GH veterans for a loop. With this guide, I intend to give my advice to otherwise-decent players who struggle with these elements.
Why I Think I'm in a Good Position to be Writing This Guide:

I've passed every single song in GHOT on Expert, 5-starring all but five of them and FC-ing two. I got my first taste of the game at the 2008 Iron Man of Gaming before its official release and since then have had many hours of hands-on time with it. Finally, I've posted scores for every song in the game and am, as of this writing, ranked 224th.

The first and most obvious thing that sets GHOT apart from other games in the series is that, unlike its console counterparts, it uses a fretboard-like peripheral which plugs into the GBA cartridge slot. If you thought the cramps you got in your hands when you first started playing Guitar Hero were bad, just wait until you get hit by the cramps you'll most likely get from the Guitar Grip.

You've no doubt noticed that when you first turn on the game, you're advised to try different styles of holding the grip, such as keeping your wrist straight. I've found that the most comfortable way of holding it is with what the official GHOT website calls the “Thumb of Rock” style. Rather than putting your entire hand into the strap, only insert your thumb (in before THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!), make sure the strap is tight enough to keep your hand in place, but loose enough to give your fingers plenty of mobility, and tap away. You should be able to hit all four frets with your fingertips without feeling discomfort. The more you play, the less your hand will cramp.

Strumming:

Make sure you hold the pick stylus firmly and strum not much farther than the outermost strings of your on-screen guitar, lifting the pick after each strum (unless you're alt-strumming, of course). This will keep your strumming accurate and avoid undesired strums or star power activations from accidentally touching the meter.

Alt-strumming:

In all honesty, I don't recommend alt-strumming unless you're trying to hit a particularly fast sequence that would otherwise be impossible to do accurately, such as the spaz-out in Breed. It's too easy to accidentally overstrum if you try to alt-strum anything slower. When you do alt-strum, however, keep your sliding short and precise. Watch the bottom of the note highway and adjust your speed if the notes burst into flames really early or really late.

Keeping Time:

If you have any experience with classical music, you should be familiar with at least one method if staying in tempo, such as tapping your feet to the count. You can minimize overstrums by minding the rhythm of the song as you play. This is especially helpful in the verse of I Am Not Your Gameboy. If you don't have any classical music experience, just read dreamaddict's music theory guide.

Star Power:

For beginner and intermediate players, it can be your saving grace when you're about to fail a song. For experts, it's the key to maximizing your score. Since you obviously can no longer activate with a simple tilt, you'll essentially have to learn how to deploy Star Power all over again.

Microphone Sensitivity:

I'm sure you already know that the simplest way to deploy Star Power is to yell (or growl, if you don't want to draw as much attention to yourself). The problem with this is that it sometimes causes you to activate when you don't want to, or vice-versa. I'd prefer that you set the mic sensitivity to “off” and use the D-pad method mentioned below, but if you don't feel comfortable using anything other than the mic, be my guest. Just do yourself a favor and make sure you turn the sensitivity down to at least medium.

Deploying with the D-pad:

In my humble opinion, this is the easiest and most reliable way to deploy Star Power. I'll you have to do is turn off the mic, and when you're ready to activate, reach down and tap the D-pad with your right thumb. It'll take a bit of practice before you can nail this under pressure consistently, but eventually you'll be able to do it in a fraction of a second and without losing your combo.

HO/PO's:

GHOT's timing window is pretty much identical to that of GH3, so don't worry about hammering-on or pulling-off too early. Just make sure that you release any frets higher than the note you're trying to hit and you'll be just fine. Also, remember that just because a note is marked on the highway as a HOPO note doesn't mean you have to treat it as such.

I Don't Wanna Stop (How to Not Get Anally Raped by the Solo):

This was originally going to be a subsection, but I decided it was a big enough pain to warrant an entire section.

It's a horrible feeling. You've been cleaning house in Career mode on Expert and just made it to the final tier. You select your song and before long you get bombarded by a gnarly solo that washes away your hopes of beating the game. No matter how many times you try it in Practice mode, you still wind up missing more than half the notes.

That's exactly what happened to me when I Don't Wanna Stop handed me my ass. I saw the wall of notes coming down the screen and thought, “There's no way I'm going to beat that!” Imagine my surprise when, almost a year later, I finally passed it and got 5 stars!

Now, I'd like to share with you how I survived.

First of all, you're going to have to learn how to anchor frets, like it or not. For those of you who aren't familiar with this technique, anchoring is when you hold down the lowest fret in a HOPO sequence and focus only on the higher notes. At the beginning of the solo, for instance, you're going to want to anchor the red fret.

Unless you're beastly at descending triplets, don't try to tap this part of the solo or any other part similar to it. Your bet bet is to have full SP when you get to the solo, wait until your Rock Meter is in the yellow (or red, if you think you'll be able to save yourself in time) before deploying, anchor, and strum at a semi-fast pace, hitting whatever you can.

Miscellaneous Tips:

Here are some tips I came up with myself that might help you out. The first two don't necessarily apply exclusively to GHOT, but are still worth mentioning.

Singing for Concentration:

Maybe it's because I've been singing my whole life, but it feels natural for me to sing along as I play if I know the lyrics. This tends to help keep me focused on the music so my mind doesn't wander.

Familiarizing Yourself with the Songs:

This brings me to my next point. It can really help you out when playing if you already know what the song is supposed to sound like. If you like a song and want to improve your score, try buying it off iTunes or another music service and listening to it a few times.

Quote:

itunes is 4 nubs, use limewire faggot lolololololol

NO. The music industry is already up to its neck in crap right now and illegally downloading all your music isn't going to make things any better, but I'll save the details for another day. Bottom line, wherever you decide to go to get the song, get it through legal means. Besides, the legal copy will more than likely sound better than it would if you tried to get it through a P2P client like LimeWire, anyway.

Whammying:

Don't worry about making sure the point of the stylus is right on the whammy bar. As long as you get somewhat close, you're in the clear. Just be sure to not go too crazy when you're wiggling it around like a madman.

Conclusion:

In addition to being ScoreHero's first ever GHOT guide, this is also the first ever guide written by me. It's not spectacular and I only covered the basics, but I hope there's enough here to help you out. If you have any questions/comments/concerns/complaints/death threats, feel free to voice your opinion._________________

I whistled for a cab and when it came near the license plate said FRESH and it had *BANG*
GHWT FC: 077483600002
RB2 FC: 312176618010

also I use the ds stylus because holding that stupid pick gave me awful hand cramps

hell I dont even hold the thing anywhere near how youre supposed to. because im lefty but I dont play with lefty flip which isnt an option in this. so I basically play with righty flip on but use my left hand to strum and fret with the right hand at a weird angle. it's kinda weird but it works. hell i 5*d the whole game on expert this way. if you're in the same predicament you can try it._________________

Yeah that thumb activation has gotta be the silliest way to activate. Pretty much what brandon says it what you wanna do. For decades, due to the weird strumming it seems best to blow to activate, if you can press one of the abxy buttons without your strumming going off, then that is probably the best way.

In GH:OT Alt strumming is a good friend and should be used like the console games. For decades on the other hand any alt strumming while changing frets is almost impossible.